What's a mother to do

Over the past few weeks I've been noticing a tendency in Jordan that concerns me a bit. It became more obvious last week when we were going to church and we started talking about our different services. She told me that she didn't want to go to the children's church, but would rather stay with me and listen to the pastor preach. Now, this in itself isn't a terrible thing. We didn't have "children's church" when I was growing up so it isn't a necessity. The problem is that I worry that she separates herself from other kids in favor of grownups in general and me in particular. We stopped going to the Wednesday night group because I wasn't getting anything from it and she wasn't really interested in the kids program. She was going to spend the night at the house of a friend in our apartment complex last night, but ended up coming home at midnight (without informing the parents of the girl who stopped by at 2:47 AM to make sure everything was all right) because she couldn't sleep and would rather be home with me.
Is this normal?
Now I love my daughter and I love spending time with her. It's nice to have her next to me at church instead of sitting on my own, and I love that she doesn't hate or avoid me since she's the only person I know well within a 60 mile radius. I just worry that she's not making friends of her own age and maybe relying too much on me. Part of it is our relationship, the only child of a single mom who have lived away from other close family for a majority of her life. It's natural that she should cling to me a bit I guess. I'm just wondering if I need to force her to interact with others when she'd rather just hang with me.

Voting Smart

I'm a big fan of voting, and especially of voting in the primaries. It's all well and good to vote between Democrat/Republican/whatever-else-is-out-there, but if we don't choose they BEST Democrat/Republican/whatever-else-is-out-there, we end up with a situation (like the last election) where we're choosing which of the terrible candidates is least terrible. So, voting is good but one of the problems people have when they vote is they don't know what the candidates really stand for and what they are likely to do in office. Well this website, SelectSmart.com, helps take some of that guesswork out. It takes the voting records of the candidates in their various political positions, and, based on the issues you designate as being most important, chooses the candidate who fits you best. Check it out and vote - In California the primary is 2/5/08, in Oregon it isn't til May, Michigan's is January 15 (January, really?). For your state's primary date, check this website.
So, now you have access to the info, so go use it!

the 9-year-old college student

It's Veterans Day (happy veteran's day to my favorite vets) and Jordan gets the day off school. Thus begins the long line of vacation/holiday days of which Jordan gets a break but I don't. In the next two weeks, she gets today off for V-day, Thursday and Friday for "teacher's conferences" and all next week for Thanksgiving. So in two weeks of school she goes twice. In that time, I get 3 days for Thanksgiving and that's about it. So she came to school with me today. Another perk of working in a Christian school is that on speech days, I don't need to worry about what she might potentially hear come out of the mouths of students. We just got done with one class full of speeches and instead of reading Captain Underpants as she had planned, she listened to, and enjoyed the speeches.
I also realized today, that Jordan has basically been going to college classes since she was 3 years old. She started when I started my Master's work and has come on and off over the years. Does this mean that in 9 years when she's ready to start college it won't have the same allure for her? Oh, and after about two speeches she patted me on the arm and asked if she could have a turn, too. I guess the dreaded public speaking class won't be such a problem for her.

I'm going back to Asia

This summer, I'm leading an ISP (international service project) trip through my school to South Korea. I had wanted to go to Africa or a Spanish-speaking country, but it seems that Asia and I are bound to each other somehow. I'll be leading a trip at the end of July/beginning of August to teach English to junior high and high school students. I'm not sure if I'm excited about it. I really feel like it's a good experience for the students, but I've been to South Korea and it isn't a place I necessarily wanted to return to. Hopefully it's a great trip and opens the students' minds to the larger world - they tend to be fairly sheltered around here.